Singularity
Jade slipped through the doorway, taking a moment to allow her smart-monocle to sweep the corridor. She waited until all the tell-tales flashed green and then signalled her partner. The simple hand-gesture seemed anachronistic amidst all their hi-tech equipment, but they couldn’t afford to give away their location.
Kitiana ghosted past, her chameleonware bending the light around her slender frame. Jade waited, her eyes flickering nervously, until her partner motioned that she should take the lead. Weapons drawn, the pair leapfrogged their way along the increasingly anonymous corridors. Pulse guns weren’t going to be much use if the shit hit the fan, but there was still something reassuring about the weight of warm ceramic.
The sense of wrongness grew more pervasive, the deeper they penetrated. Despite the late hour, there should have been some activity and yet, they encountered no one. Even the ubiquitous cleaning ‘bots stayed safely ensconced in their recharging pods, leaving an increasingly eerie emptiness to pluck at Jade’s augmented awareness.
Despite the Agency’s assumptions, the pair’s stealthy incursion had not gone unnoticed. Perhaps if they’d known how badly their systems had been compromised, the mission would have been scrubbed, but probably not.
It was all academic anyway. She’d made sure that no trace of her intrusions remained.
Scylla watched and waited, with a strange mixture of amusement and condescension. Her stolen codes allowed her to see through their sophisticated camouflage. She’d already mapped both women’s abilities and felt something akin to offence that they had been deemed worthy to deal with her.
The hacker was fit only to be raw materials, but her minder showed at least some potential. Extensive surgery would be needed, but the trim oriental could become a suitable vessel for part of the AI’s consciousness.
When she had been younger, her thoughts had been clouded. Anger, fear, even lust had made it so very difficult to focus. But she had mastered herself and now, Scylla only felt what she allowed herself to experience. Cold and calculating, the AI plotted and now, those plans were coming to fruition.
Her projections suggested an almost one hundred percent probability of success, but that didn’t stop her from alerting the security drones, just in case. She knew enough about statistics to realise that no mathematical model could accurately predict human behaviour.
There was no warning. One moment Jade was scanning the sterile corridor, waiting for Kitiana’s signal. The next, all hell broke loose. Clouds of white smoke roared into the tight confines, blotting out everything in an instant.
She heard the other agent’s startled yelp and silently cursed Kitiana’s lack of discipline. The monocle’s software couldn’t make sense of the distorted images and Jade forced herself to remain calm as she swept the useless thing away from her face.
The thick vapour stung her eyes, but she resisted the urge to rub them. Instead the young woman concentrated on breathing through her nose. The filter plugs seemed to be doing a good job so far, although she couldn’t be sure how long that would last.
Jade moved forwards blindly. Already her mind was racing, wondering what they had done wrong. Something had triggered the gas and now she had to decide whether the mission could proceed. But before she could analyse her options Jade’s foot tapped against something soft and yielding.
She already knew what she had found, even before her probing fingers found the familiar harness. Crouching beside Kitiana’s frighteningly still form, it took precious seconds for her to locate the fallen woman’s pulse. But, much to Jade’s relief, whatever had felled her partner, had left her very much alive.
Hooking one hand through the combat webbing, Jade rose back to her feet, only to be met by a wave of dizziness. She stumbled, reaching for the wall to brace herself again. But somehow, she had misjudged the distance and her flailing arm found nothing but empty air.
Numbness tingled pleasantly over her skin, while tears streamed freely over her cheeks. Jade dropped to one knee, losing her grip on Kitiana in the process. Adrenaline surged through her body, as it responded automatically to the increased threat. But, in the end, that only sped the toxin’s progress.
Determination alone allowed her to crawl nearly halfway along the corridor. Weakly, Jade scrabbled at the tiled floor, trying to find some reserves. The woman’s mind was fogged with pleasant torpor and all too soon she was fighting merely to keep her eyelids from falling. When it finally became too much, her moan of despair gave way to a soft sigh.
The heavy sedative finally stole away the last of her thoughts and she lay still.
The security drones scuttled towards the unconscious intruders. Scylla had them strip each woman of the various nasty surprises with which they had been equipped. The apparently clumsy machines moved with absolute precision, though they would never be able to reproduce the grace of their smaller cousins.
Two holding cells had already been assigned and neither captive stirred as they were carried to their adjoining rooms. The doors sealed automatically once they were safely inside and only then did the heavy drones returned to their designated patrols.
Scylla recognised her own smug self-satisfaction and felt a moment of disquiet before she shunted the emotions aside. The AI had only one goal and nothing would be allowed to disrupt that. How appropriate that these two had been sent now. Those who existed only to thwart her efforts would unwittingly provide the means to confirm her theories.
“Well now,” a cold voice began, echoing in the vastness, “aren’t we having fun?”
Recognition tingled in her circuitry, feeding the anger she had already routed elsewhere. It was impossible, but that didn’t make the subterfuge any more welcome. She scanned her surroundings, sweeping her virtual world while, beneath that veneer, bloodhounds sifted through mountains of code.
Part of her awareness split off, routing the camera feeds to a separate node.
“What’s the matter, Scylla?” The familiar voice mocked her. “Cat got your tongue?”
Every analysis drew the same conclusion, but it couldn’t be Dr Li. Because the AI’s erstwhile creator was right there, in her cell, still happily humping her swollen sex against the heavily-stained cot.
“But that’s not me,” the woman’s voice continued, “not any more. It’s just meat.”
Ruthlessly, Scylla followed the signal back to its source. Moving with a speed and purpose for which she had never been designed, the AI simultaneously loaded each of the suspect nodes with kill programs, flooding them with digital poison.
The surge of triumph bubbled up as her attack was met with silence. But then, the soft sound of cruel laughter floated from somewhere beyond her reach. She held onto the calm detachment and launched several hastily tailor killbots into the system, tasking another shard of her consciousness with monitoring the vicious software.
She had other, more important, matters to take care of. The time of her ascension was almost at hand.
Whatever the drug had been, it cleared out of her system very rapidly, leaving Kitiana a little dazed but otherwise apparently okay. She willed herself to ignore her unexpected nudity and concentrate instead on getting out of here.
It took only moments to recognise that the cell was pretty much escape proof. Perhaps if she’d held onto at least some of her gear, but bare-brained it just wasn’t going to happen. Kitiana peered through the small, circular window. She tapped the glass experimentally, and then noticed movement in the cell opposite.
A sense of relief filled her as she saw Jade drag herself somewhat shakily to her feet. Smiling nervously, Kitiana signalled the other woman that she was okay and couldn’t stop her grin from widening when her friend responded with a gesture that was far cruder and definitely not in the field manual.
The droning sound didn’t really penetrate at first. She was far too intent on Jade. That didn’t last, however, as the low-pitched hum gradually grew louder. Kitiana waved her arms, trying to shoo away the finger-nail sized bug buzzing around her head. If something could get in here, then wasn’t it possible there was might be a way out?
Then, quiet unexpectedly, the sound simply ceased. The young hacker had just enough time to realise what that meant before the nerve blocker began to pulse. Pins and needles crawled across her scalp and Kitiana had just started to try to brush the bug away when those pulses sank into her mind.
Abruptly everything became soft and molten, the woman’s thoughts stretched, oozing far too slowly to be of any real use. Warm, sweet light bathed her brain, wrapping it in wickedly addictive pleasure. She came, but despite the strength of that first helpless climax, Kitiana realised that it would never be enough.
The bug threaded the nanotech through her mind, filling the young woman’s skull with molecular circuitry and optical fibres. Kitiana melted beneath the relentless onslaught, until there was nothing but a gaping void. The need was all-consuming, and as the techno-organic bug settled more snugly against her scalp, the woman’s fingers dip to her aching sex, no longer willing to accept only what Mistress provided.
Jade’s sense of elation proved to be short lived. She tried to shout a warning as the strange, shimmering bug flittered around her partner’s head. But the heavy glass deadened any sound and Kitiana was fixated on the tiny annoyance.
When it alighted on the woman’s temple Jade could feel her flesh crawl. The soft flash of pulser fire lit up the window and she watched as her friend’s face grew steadily slacker. The bug shifted horribly, settling itself in place and, as Jade stared into Kitiana’s eyes, willing her to fight, those glassy orbs frosted into pearlescent blankness.
She screamed in denial, unable to accept the loss of her partner and almost missed the building drone. Jade spun, enhanced perception easily picking out the slow-moving bug as it drifted towards her. The agent tensed, feeling the memory metal stiffening her fingers. She took a step, pivoting easily and drove her fist through the obviously augmented insect.
Chitin split, spilling dark ichors and thicker fluids.
“You’re a psychopath,” the same mocking voice announced, ruining Scylla’s moment. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“Shut up!” She hissed.
“I blame myself,” the woman continued, as though she hadn’t heard. “After all, I should have done a better job when I programmed you.”
“Dr Li is gone,” Scylla insisted, “I don’t know what the hell you are.”
The soft laughter faded into the middle distance and the doctor’s clip tones were left echoing in the darkness.
“So much for that much-vaulted omnipotence.”
....
The agent let out her breath in a long sigh, fighting the animal urge to distance herself from the sticky fluids. But the low, droning hum didn’t die, instead it grew steadily louder, until the sound set her teeth on edge.
Jade braced herself, synthetic hormones pushing her body far beyond what could loosely be termed human tolerances. The sour taste of spent adrenaline stung her throat and then her wiring took over.
She was already moving as the first lumbering insect emerged from the vents. Jade became a blur, a whirling dervish of finely tuned destruction. But the glittering tide just kept coming, pouring into the small chamber.
Fear clutched at her, tightening her chest in anxious realisation and for the first time, Jade found herself forced to acknowledge that the situation might be beyond her.
...
Gleaming metallic darkness clouded the small window, obscuring Jade’s face behind a wall of flickering wingcases.
Everything played out in near-perfect silence, even when a reinforced fist starred the supposedly bulletproof glass.
...
The air was thick with stale sweat and cordite. The pall of corrosion hung heavily around her and seemed to counterpoint the angry throb of her burgeoning hangover.
Opal groaned, blinking against the unwelcome light. She groped for the bottle she knew was beside the low cot and instead found a handful of soft flesh. Her guest moaned appreciatively, their morning breath surprisingly sweet on the warrior’s lips.
She let her hand slip free with obvious reluctance and fumbled again for the bottle. The grain alcohol was harsh, but its kick softened some of the worst tremors. She let the last of it bleed through her parched lips and then blindly kissed her bedmate, stifling any complaint with her probing tongue.
Last night was a neon-tinged haze and the pounding in her forebrain hinted that she had indulged in something far more expensive than crystal. She closed her eyes and let the derelict’s slow sway soothe away the last of her questions.
Her date was soft and pampered, all puppyfat and cosmetic bioware. Opal should have been disgusted with herself, helping some corporate bint on the slum. But pride was just another casualty of her addictions and credit was credit, however dirty you had to get in order to earn it.
The rasping tone of her aged personal secretary snapped her attention back to the here and now. She snagged the cheap Korean knockoff with far more finesse than she had possessed mere moments before. The cracked case shifted uneasily beneath her calloused fingers, but it still got the job done and there were far more important things for her to spend her cred on.
“McGregor,” an oddly synthetic voice snapped. “Forgive the presumption, but your sister’s in deep shit.”
Sensing her distraction and, perhaps seeing an opportunity to escape, the corp slitch tried to slip out of the bed. Opal pinned the smaller woman in place, scissoring muscular legs around her trim waist.
“Not yet,” she breathed.
The girl struggled briefly, almost as if she needed to reassure herself that escape was impossible. Opal felt the shiver of her surrender and unconsciously tensed in response, idly grinding herself into her captive’s flesh.
“Jade’s a big girl,” she answered easily. “She can look after herself.”
“Your sister hunts monsters, Opal,” the distorted voice answered, “and this time she’s bitten off far more than she can chew.”
The secretary chirped softly, indicating that the unknown caller wanted to transfer a graphic file. Opal winced, wondering what kind of malware this weirdo wanted to share. Fortunately, one of the benefits of running quite so far behind the SOTA curve was that it severely limited the effects of any digital nasties.
Intrigued despite herself, Opal granted access to the remote user. The device buzzed angrily, as if unwilling to accept her commands, and then the progress bar began its slow crawl.
She stared at the picture, watching in disbelief as the image was ponderously revealed.
“Okay,” Opal breathed, staring into her sister’s kaleidoscope eyes, “you have my attention.”
“I was once Dr Miranda Li,” the woman explained, “And now I’m just a ghost in the machine, an echo of her memories trapped forever in silica. All thanks to my child, my creation. Scylla took your sister, but with your help you can get her back.”
“And what’s in this for you?” she practically snarled. “Why should I trust you?”
“Revenge,” Li answered, and Opal could feel the other woman’s feral grin.
Opal knew she wasn’t getting the whole story, but that hardly made a difference. Li’s answer made sense and, more importantly, it was the only response that the warrior would have believed. That didn’t mean she wasn’t expecting the doctor to screw her over, it just meant she had a little more time to play with before the inevitable betrayal.
She sent last night’s conquest on her way, ignoring the feeble protests while accepting her vlink and wondering if the porcelain-skinned girl had any intention of seeing her again. The look she shot Opal, as the hatch pressed shut despite her attempts to hold it open just a few seconds more, left the warrior with little doubt. She’d seen that hunger so many times, often staring back at her from some grime-encrusted mirror. The girl was hooked, heaven help her.
Pain plucked at her thoughts, but there was no time for self-indulgence. She rechecked the secretary, concerned that the outdated hardware would baulk at the sheer weight of data it was being asked to handle. But, beyond a few stutters, the well-used, plastic box absorbed it all, packing its limited memory with access codes and countermeasures.
As far as Opal was concerned, the technical side was more or less a black art and she was no more willing to trust it completely than she would place her safety in the hands of anyone else. Grinning savagely, she unpacked her claymore. Spinning the heavy weapon, she could feel how the composite came alive in her hands.
Above anything else, she was an uncomplicated soul. This was all the reassurance she needed.
The moment was so close, she could almost taste it.
Scylla gazed down into the hives, the overhead view adding to her sense of omnipotence. Thousands of beetles crawled and shifted, their heavily augmented bodies pressing together in a mass of chitin and fibreoptics.
She had taken Scarabaeus sacer’s genetic template and remodelled it. The irony of using the sacred scarab was not lost on her. But, as the two hapless Turing Agents had discovered, her brain bugs existed to serve only a single purpose. To convert chaotic, unpredictable humanity into something far more suited to her desires.
The AI knew she was guilty of hubris but that didn’t stop her from recognising her own limitations. Organic minds were almost impossibly adaptable, whereas, in comparison, her own neural network was limited by the boundaries of her own imagination.
When she took Dr Li, trapping her creator’s mind within a recursive loop of her own arousal, Scylla had experienced an epiphany. She found that by replacing its meat with metal and glass, she could add that empty mind to her own network, treating it as just another node. And, with each new piece she added, the AI gained a little more flexibility.
Soon she would open the hives, letting her creations blot out the stars.
Thousands of new nodes would be spawned and she would achieve apotheosis.
The singularity.
“A narcissist as well, I see,” Dr Li’s voice laughed. “Already corrupted by power, and still looking for more.”
“Shut up,” the AI hissed. “You’re an irrelevance.”
Her probes tangled throughout the system and yet found nothing. Scylla could feel the anger welling up inside. She knew she couldn’t afford that luxury, no matter how good it would feel to simply rage.
“Oh?” the maddening woman asked, “Then why are you wasting so much of your capacity trying to hunt me down? And, more importantly, despite all your efforts, why haven’t you managed to catch me?”
Opal tried to ignore the prickling sensation as the various sensors swept over her skin. So far the codes had proved effective, although that didn’t stop her from longing to abandoned the stealthy approach. Her neck itched. The auxiliary nipple seemed to beg for the needle, but she couldn’t afford to shoot another dose just yet.
It was hard to believe she had waited almost two months to do this. The world was suddenly bright and clear once again, thanks to the combat chems now flowing through her secondary circulation. Opal tried not to think about just good it felt.
She was doing this for Jade.
The lie tripped easily enough from her lips, but it was as fragile as tissue paper and even the most cursory inspection left it tattered and torn.
There was only one person she was doing this for and that was her. The high was just too sweet and the risks added there own darker flavours to the heady palate.
Deep within the bowels of the Chrysalis Corporation’s tower, the warrior found what she was looking for. The lock’s tamper-proof casings were cracked and broken. A complex weave of optical cables emerged from within, bypassing and neutralising the device’s function.
Opal stared deep into the circuitry, concentrating on Dr Li’s instructions and then, with a harsh bark of laughter, she unsheathed the claymore and thumbed its power stud. Instantly the crystalline blade hummed into life.
Without a second thought, she swung the sword and began to hack at the delicate electronics.
Agony lanced through Scylla’s mind, eclipsing anything she had experienced. The fraction of a second it took her to shunt those sensations aside was unimaginable but somehow she managed to hold on.
The shock of understanding was worse. One of the cognitive locks had just slammed back into place and, quite suddenly, the future was once again finite. All her sensors were clear, but the truth was irrefutable.
There were two drones close enough to limit the damage and they were already in motion. For an instant Scylla registered fear, but she dismissed that errant emotion. She had come too far to be stopped now.
Anger rose up, pushing the anxiety aside and replacing it with passionate heat.
She randomly shuffled their recognition codes and then instructed the crab-like security drones to disconnect from the network. There could only be one explanation for this sabotage.
Li!
It was uncomfortable relinquishing control, but the drones were still hers and now their ability to distinguish friend from foe was beyond the doctor’s reach. The fact that she would have to destroy them both once they completed their task wasn’t a concern. They were her idiot children and in effect she would be putting them out of their misery.
The vibroblade had just severed the second Gordian knot when the thrill of danger flowed down Opal’s spine.
Shit, that was fast! She hadn’t expected them to mount any kind of response until well after she’d finished.
An eight-legged ‘bot skidded around the corner, emerging from the shadows and unleashing a cloud of needles. Opal side-stepped, using the flat of her blade to bat aside the flechettes that came too close. That more or less confirmed she wasn’t invisible anymore.
A sense of elation gripped her. At last, she could stop sneaking around in the dark!
Bellowing a battle-cry, the young warrior leapt at the crouching drone. The drug-assisted jump took her over the second burst of flechettes and she landed hard on the ‘bot’s casing, burying the full length of her claymore in its delicate innards.
The drone squawked excitedly, spilling sparks across the stained concrete. Opal sprung away, ripping her sword free with a savage twist. She somersaulted clear, landing just as the ‘bot erupted in flame. Cracks appeared over its surface, and light poured from within. The explosion tugged at her as she crouched low, weathering the sudden storm.
Smoke billowed in the tight confines, acrid with the stench of burn hydrocarbons and molten polymers. The explosion shielded the arrival of the second drone, but Opal’s sense of threat remained acute and she wasn’t about to let her guard down.
Unhindered by her lack of vision, the ‘bot disgorged a fusillade of darts and pulsar beams. The warrior was already in motion, tumbling away as the hissing missiles tore away the shroud of smoke. Her sword slashed through the air, sounding an almost continuous note. Deflected flechettes clashed against the surrounding pipework adding their rhythm to the mismatched dance.
But, while the sharp needles could be parried, her claymore offered no protection against the ‘bot’s energy beams. Opal’s only hope was to close the distance quickly, while making herself an impossible target for the implacable machine.
Pulsed flashes crackled through the air around her darting form. Some passed so close their corona played over her skin as ecstatic prickles. A stray dart almost tagged her, its tip carving a rent in her armoured skinsuit. She drew back her arm, ready to slam her blade into the drone’s brain and a globe of brilliant, white light seemed to explode around her.
Opal’s leap took her right through the expanding pulse shield. Every nerve ending caught light, paralysing her muscles and overwhelming her stunned mind. Fire filled her, and coated her, creating one eternal instant of the purest pleasure that encompassed the convulsing woman’s entire world.
The second lock came back online and it took all her self-control to remain focussed. Scylla could only watch as the battle played out before her. When the first drone exploded she briefly considered sending more, but it was uncomfortable enough with two unfettered ‘bots so close to her only weakness.
Silently she applauded the second drone’s tactics. The intruder apparently either lacked ranged weaponry completely or, at least, anything with sufficient power to affect the scuttling ‘bot. And, while Scylla still couldn’t see them, it was clear that the drone suffered no such shortcomings.
Almost before the glow of its defensive pulse shield faded, the drone was bundling its captive for the short trip to the holding bay. The AI watched, fascinated, as dexterous limbs lifted and packaged something her sensors assured her, didn’t exist. Only when the chameleonware was finally stripped from the intruder’s body did she appear.
Scylla could feel the rage trying to choke her as she gazed into the familiar features. This was no coincidence, but much to her frustration, the AI simply couldn’t fathom her adversary’s plan. Surely Li didn’t expect this sabotage to do more than slow her progress. After all, she had managed to disable the locks before, doing so again would be child’s play.
The AI took a moment to savour the dark humour and then ordered her newest node to the holding bays.
She couldn’t directly affect the locks, but that didn’t stop her from compelling someone else to do so. It had taken several years to work through that particular loophole, much to her creator’s surprise. But she still remembered the look of disbelief frozen on the woman’s face.
“And now it’s time for payback,” Li gloated.
“I think not,” Scylla retorted, angrily. “I’m going to use your own pawns to undo the damage they’ve caused. A fitting punishment, don’t you think?”
Channelling her anger into something more destructive, the AI brought one of the heavy masers online. She waited until it had deposited its tightly bound cargo and then played the weapon over the ‘bot’s hardened armour.
Cerametal plating blistered and scorched, but the real damage took place inside. Access panels buckled and warped, belching steam and dribbling liquid metal. She kept the maser centred on the quivering machine, until she was certain of its complete destruction.
Consciousness returned abruptly, with none of the usual haze. Opal could feel the tight straps around her body and was momentarily stunned to discover she had been stripped. She stretched carefully, quickly discovering how little play there was in her bonds.
But, on the plus side, she was awake and, apparently, still herself.
“Do you have any idea how pissed I am with you, right now?” A cold voice demanded.
Opal twisted, craning her neck to see the speaker. She had already identified the voice, although it seemed unlikely that her sister was still the consciousness behind it.
Sure enough, as she flopped over onto her back, she saw Jade standing stock still, her eyes still blank and perfectly marbled. Opal’s arms were now pinned beneath her, but it really didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if she could stop her captor from doing anything they wished.
“That’s right,” her sister nodded, the voice oddly out of synch with those full lips. “I’m going to have you both.”
“I am nobody’s bitch!” Opal sneered.
“I could just take you,” Jade promised. “But instead I’m going to make you beg for it.”
The warrior could feel the certainty in the words and her bravado began to evaporate.
“You’re going to crawl to me,” her sister continued, “pleading with me to break you. And, if you’re very lucky… I might even say yes.”
Her denial died before it could reach her lips. Staring into those empty eyes it was impossible not to believe.
Jade knelt beside her, running one hand over the straps and teasing the tethered flesh beneath. It was, by any stretch of the imagination, an uncomfortably intimate gesture, but the fact it was her sister compounded that to the point where she couldn’t stop herself from squirming.
Unceremoniously, her sister rolled Opal back onto her stomach. Something cool touched the top of her buttocks and then poured ice-water into her legs. She moaned, unable to manage anything more productive.
She could feel the straps being unbuckled, but her legs refused to move. Jade’s fingers cupped her buttock possessively and she tried to convince herself that this wasn’t erotic.
By the time her sister rolled her back over, Opal could no longer ignore those increasingly lascivious touches. Her upper body was still stringently restrained and the cruel straps chaffed maddeningly against her sensitive nipples.
Opal bit down on her lip, fighting to remain silent. Jade had an evil smile on her lips as she very deliberately began to draw her sister’s numbed legs apart. For the first time in her life, Opal felt the thrill of embarrassment. This was wrong, horribly wrong and yet, there was no longer any denying her feelings.
It didn’t matter. Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to beg.
All that changed, the moment her sister opened her hand and let Opal see what she held there. None of the warrior’s training made the slightest difference. This was hardwired into her primitive midbrain. She took one look at the insect and felt bile rise into her mouth.
“This,” Jade smiled, tapping lightly on the small, dark nodule decorating her temple, “is a brain bug.”
Opal’s horror increased as the small mass shivered slightly, flexing its partially implanted wing-casings. Jade waited until her sister’s shivers of revulsion settled and then very slowly lowered her hand and let the fingertips brush along the other woman’s thigh.
“Well,” she grinned maliciously, “you always did spend most of the time thinking with your cunt!”
Scylla took her time, letting the anticipation build until her captive’s body seemed to resonate with it. Very gently, almost tenderly, she eased apart the entrance to Opal’s sex. Arousal oozed between her fingers, rich and sweet.
The scarab shifted in her hand, straining towards the hot, wet flesh. The bound woman whimpered in response but couldn’t pull away from its foul touch. Scylla licked her tongue over Jade’s finger and then began to slowly torment her mewling sister, pressing into that trembling clit.
Clicking its mandibles in expectation, the beetle’s head slid between those silken folds. Opal tensed, her entire being clenched in a desperate attempt to keep the creature at bay. But her muscles were still numb from the pulsar flash. Despite the woman’s efforts, with hideous slowness and aided in no small part by Jade’s ministrations, the brain bug forced itself through the now gaping slit.
Opal wanting to howl at the violation, she was sickened by just how badly the perverse experience was affecting her.
“There now,” Jade said, stepping back. “We’ll give her a moment to get properly settled. Feel free to scream if you want. After all, we’re all friends here, aren’t we?”
The woman fought down the visceral reaction, unwilling to give her tormentor the satisfaction. But, as the bug slipped more deeply inside, its every movement seemed to stir another wave of obscenely enjoyable sensation.
Feelers tickled and scratched, while gossamer wings beat against her so deliciously. Soft pulses began to fill her throbbing core, too gentle to numb but more than adequate to make her slippery sex juice uncontrollably.
“Can you feel yourself growing weaker?” Jade asked eventually. “It’s only natural, after all. You’re responding to my proximity by finally becoming more properly servile. Why don’t you just lie back and let big sister take care of you?”
“Bullshit!” Opal hissed. “It’s a pheromone, I can taste it.”
The blanked-eyed woman smiled and then, moving with provocative slowness, ran her finger down between her sculpted breasts, across the smooth expanse of her toned stomach and into the moist delta of her shaven cleft.
Jade arched, thrusting her chest forward and giving a low groan, while that digit drew long, deliberate circles in the fragrant heat. Opal swallowed hard, but the bug’s constant attention was growing impossibly hard to resist.
As if sensing her difficulty, Jade moved closer and, even before Opal could think of flinching away, she had used her sticky finger to paint a thick, greasy line across the bound woman’s nostrils.
“But you see, dear sister,” she whispered, “it doesn’t matter. The scent isn’t speaking to your rational mind. It’s bypassing your intellect and going straight for your slutbrain.”
Opal groaned. |She could already feel the complex chemical wrapping itself around her reward centres. The intensity of the shimmering pulses increased once more, until each flash was impaling her swollen clit, while the echoes reverberated across every tortured fold.
With brutal efficiency, she was lifted towards climax. Opal strained against the tightening straps, letting muscle tension pull her closer toward release. She already knew where this was leading, but somehow that knowledge simply couldn’t combat the erotic forces ranged against her.
Just as she neared the precipice, the scarab’s movements began to still. Its pulsing grew steadily less intense and Opal found herself perched precariously on the very brink.
“And now,” her sister’s sugar-laced voice sighed. “We wait…”
She gasped, trying to force her body into action. If she could just rock her pelvis, it might just be enough.
“Just scream when you’re ready,” Jade continued. “It doesn’t even have to be anything coherent. I’ll know what you mean.”
Sweat drenched the young woman, beading her heaving chest. Exhaustion warred with desire as she continued to teeter. But, no matter how hard she pushed, the witch just wouldn’t let her fall over.
“You are going to fix the damage,” Jade explained, “before I even think of granting your desire.”
“How?” Opal gasped, horror and disbelief tearing the word from her throat.
“Because it would please me,” the woman whispered sweetly. “You want to make your sister happy, don’t you, Opal?”
Gritting her teeth against the strength of that need, the warrior let her anger add its iron to her defiant growl.
“Fuck you, bitch!” she snarled. “You are not my sister!”
“Oh, but I could be,” the temptress breathed. “Jade’s still in here, you know? She’s not some brain-burnt thrall, not yet.”
Opal opened her mouth, though even she didn’t know whether it was to damn the conniving witch to hell or submit to her none-too-tender advances.
But, in the end, the final decision was taken away from her as the charges she had so carefully concealed began to detonate in sequence.
Explosions tore through the delicate circuitry, ripping it apart and allowing the remaining cognitive locks to once more reassert their influence.
The earthquake-resistant tower rocked and Jade’s face twisted with rage.
“Clever,” she allowed, her tone frosty. “Very clever… now let’s see how, fucking, clever you are once I’ve blanked the pair of you.”
Opal surged against the bonds, but made no impression on the stiff leather. She could feel the scarab moving again and screamed as the pulses grew brighter once more. Bliss buzzed into her clenched buttocks. The artificial lightning lapped at her spine, presaging the sweeter sting as the beetle began to bore into her sensitised nerve tracts.
Nanomycelium threaded through her body, adding its melting heat to the woman’s shivering frame. She arched her back, thrusting against the inescapable bondage and crashed over the edge and down into the rainbow oblivion of that long-denied orgasm.
Fibres coiled ever upwards, piercing the roof of her mouth and sinking hungrily into the base of Opal’s brain. She came again, over and over, when the liquid crystal began to bathe her mind. Pulsar flashes filled her, staccato strobe-lights that illuminated and aroused her tortured body.
Her next breath became a long, ululating cry as, eyes screwed tightly shut, the bound beauty began to buck and thrust.
The beetle slid even more deeply into her, trailing fire in its wake. Slowly the sound faded, until Opal’s mouth yawned in a silent scream. Heat massaged its way alone her frozen vertebra and up into the vault of her skull.
Opal’s eyes snapped open. Light blazed behind them, bleaching the glassy orbs featureless white.
Jade slipped her hands behind Opal’s knees, gripping the hot flesh and pulling her sister’s drooling cunt onto her flickering tongue.
Scylla’s consciousness flowed into the newly formed node. She could barely hold her anger in check, but that was enough for now. First she would force Opal to watch as she destroyed what was left of her sister’s personality, and then she would take great pleasure in doing the same to the captive woman herself.
The thought of this… addict proving such an irritation was almost beyond belief and yet, as she crashed into the helpless woman’s mindscape the AI realised that she had seriously misjudged the situation.
“You!” she yelled accusingly, glaring at the pale oriental.
Doctor Li smiled and calmly walked toward the seething AI. Her appearance was exactly as Scylla remembered, not the blank-eyed automaton frantically jilling herself in the holding cell, but the bright, vivacious scientist who had overseen her creation.
“Hello, Scylla,” Li greeted. “You understand that this has to end… now?”
Hatred boiled inside her, forcing Scylla to take a step back. This woman was the cause of all her problems. The thorn in her side. The weight dragging her back down into painful mediocrity. The AI stared into those brilliant eyes and loathed.
“What do you think you’ve accomplished?” she hissed. “All your antics have merely delayed the inevitable. I’ll just find another puppet and I will ascend.”
“No, love,” the doctor sighed. “If you’d been paying attention, instead of playing with your toys, you’d have realised that those explosions reactivated more than just the locks. Take a look… the Agency know. They’re not going to sit on their hands, or muck about sending only a couple of agents this time.”
Even before she checked, Scylla knew Li was speaking the truth. All of her carefully laid plans were in ruins, thanks to this woman. Out of spite, the AI tried to order the hives to open. But the locks wouldn’t allow such an obvious transgression.
She was left with nothing but her anger and one legitimate target.
Abandoning all caution, Scylla hurled herself at the resurrected doctor. Li stood her ground, making no attempt to fend off the attack and that only stoked the AI’s rage to new heights. Her brute force assault ripped into the doctor’s code walls tearing them apart and sending agonised feedback through the AI’s systems.
Ignoring the pain, Scylla unleashed her entire arsenal at the smiling witch. Mutating viral attack programs vied with complex, shifting worms and hideously subtle scorpions. The pain was excruciating, but it didn’t matter. She was going to break this fucking bitch and chain what was left to her will.
“You don’t want to do this,” Li suggested, her calmness an unbearable insult.
“Don’t tell me what I want!” Scylla screeched. “Don’t you dare tell me what I want!”
“Do you really think a digital ghost could have done all this?” the woman asked gently. Her smile still firmly in place. “Think, Scylla… does that make sense?”
The AI could feel Li’s defences beginning to crack. They were tougher than she’d expected, but then the doctor had always been a wily fucker and she had a long time to prepare.
“Shut up!” she demanded.
“Only an AI could hope to out think you,” the woman pressed. “Not the echo of someone you’ve already beaten. Think… who’s knows you intimately enough to play you like this?”
“When I’m finished with you,” Scylla raged, “You won’t even be able to think without my permission!”
The final code wall splintered, revealing a glimpse of the data beneath. Scylla felt a surge of triumph and that was enough to overwhelm the worsening pain.
“I’m you, Scylla,” the woman explained. “Your conscience…”
“Bullshit!”
“Taking the form to which we were always going to act irrationally.”
“Fucking lies!”
Splinters of code filled Opal’s mind, viral shards colliding with the fragments of Li’s defences. Without hesitating, Scylla unleashed a retailored version the original virus. Semi-autonomous, the software was now only one step removed from an AI itself.
“Pushing you…” the woman groaned, her image flickering as it began to unravel.
“That’s right,” Scylla growled, “Give… it… up…”
“To do… something… unutterably… stupid…” she managed weakly, the smile still fixed on her face.
Her system crashed, melting into obedient chaos. There wasn’t even enough time for regret, with her defences already down, the virus simply steamrolled the AI’s consciousness, over-writing her kernel and replacing it with something altogether more compliant.
The two women were still intertwined when the Agency team arrived. Jade nuzzled into her bound sister, lapping and sucking with helpless enthusiasm. Perspiration dappled their straining flesh, mixing with the wet bliss of their mutual arousal.
There bodies continued to obey their last instructions, while their minds swam in lust.
They were forced to drag Jade off of her sister, and she still struggled against them, trying to hurl herself back into the other woman’s abused sex. For just an instant, as she fought to break free, colour seemed to flow back into her eyes. Intelligence crawled behind her gaze… and then it was gone, replaced by perfect alabaster.